Margot Robbie is currently generating huge excitement over the imminent Barbie movie, but it can be easy to forget that she’s an acclaimed actress who has been nominated for two Oscars and four BAFTAs. One of Robbie’s Oscar nominations is for her leading role in the unusual sports movie I, Tonya. And it’s leaving Netflix at the end of July.
I, Tonya is the incredible movie based on a true story of American figure skater Tonya Harding and her involvement on the attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan which took place in 1994. Sebastian Stan plays her husband Jeff Gillooly, Paul Walter Hauser plays his co-conspirator Shawn Eckardt, and Julianne Nicholson plays her coach Diane Rawlinson. Alison Janney won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Tonya’s mother.
The film features Harding and Gillooly being interviewed for a documentary, and they recount their version of events. Both are unreliable narrators, and the audience is left to decide if they can trust what they’re watching. Robbie’s portrayal of Harding is sympathetic, with her pressured upbringing and abusive marriage being seen as contributing factors to the crime.
I, Tonya is one of several films released after 2016 that presented different versions of the truth, asking the viewer to be an active participant in the narrative. American Animals (2018) is another drama movie which combines documentary with fiction, and is also based on a real-life crime – the Transylvania University rare book heist.
American Animals blurs elements of fiction and documentary, with the real-life people involved appearing alongside the actors in scripted scenes, and different versions of the same scene shown to reflect the varying accounts of events. In the US, it’s currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
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